A cliched final scene in a zombie movie might go something like this: the embattled, rag-tag crew thinks they are in the clear, their 4x4 armor plated truck speeding down a highway littered with abandoned vehicles. A swell of optimistic music signals the credits are about to roll. Suddenly, there is a chilling reveal that one of their number has been bitten, and the inexorable transformation into flesh-hungry living dead is already underway. The end.

I had this feeling towards the end of this extremely weird book, although maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Passage after passage would go by without much happening, perhaps idyllic descriptions of forested landscapes and rugged coastlines, or minor incidents in the life of a family. Then all the sudden, in just a few lines, the whole vibe would shift, throwing you into a vividly graphic scene of violence, desperation, death. I still don’t think this could have signaled what would be revealed in the final few pages of the first part of the book, which contain what has to be one the most hilariously underwhelming twist endings I’ve ever come across. After spending several hours making my through the biography of an angelologist and two novella length adaptations of biblical texts, for this story to end up where it did felt like an elaborate and scampish “fuck you”. All that is not to say I didn’t enjoy it. However, I was so taken aback by the “seagulls are angels” that I gave unbidden, off the cuff reviews to several friends this week, cherishing the moment right before I revealed the ending, which sounds even more absurd when said out loud.

The real “monster was in the house all along moment” was the hard cut that was the “coda” section of the book. While still pretty nice to read, it is such a whiplash inducing change that I’m not really sure why it was included here at all, besides maybe to really drive home the point about the seagulls are angels thing. But after reading several hundred pages of this book and thinking how cool it was that the guy who would go on to write My Struggle was able to create characters and plots that somewhat resembled a typical novel, the coda jerks us into a kind of proto-Struggle, what I can only assume is a lightly fictionalized version of a real life experience that could have fit comfortably in that later work. Why is this part of the book here? Beats me. The first interpretation that comes to mind isn’t a sympathetic one, namely that this writer who later became world famous for a book which defies any editor that dares raise a pen against it, hadn’t yet found the right format for his idiosyncratic style. Perhaps here we are seeing several different meandering segments tied together with vague connections in order to make a book? If so, I’d have to say it’s done about as well as it could be. The main reason that My Struggle might succeed in that space where, for me, A Time for Everything doesn’t quite make it, is that with the former there is no impression that we are going anywhere in particular, the digressions are the point, and muddling through the tedious in order to bump into the sublime is the key thrill of the work. The problem with this book here is that the stories are actually interesting, and especially given the subject matter, we can’t help but think that it’s all going to culminate in some kind of… culmination. Instead it ends on an intentionally, aggressively sour note.

One thing I had forgotten about in the ~10 years since I read the first couple My Struggle books is how hilariously awkward Knausgaard’s dialogue is. He uses a lot of exclamation points and all caps, which always strikes me as the way a child would show that someone in a story is angry. I guess it’s not so strange that someone so good at tracing the grueling circuit of a thought through time and space would kinda suck at actually making his characters talk. ( )

Ein sehr seltsames Buch.
Traurig bis depressiv, hochintelligent, erzählerisch frei wie nichts anderes, was ich bisher gelesen habe.
Inhaltlich geht es um Engel, was sie früher waren und heute sind, um die Erkenntnisse des fiktiven Engelforschers Bellori aus der Renaissance-Zeit und um biblische Geschichten rund um verschiedene Engelsauftritte im alten Testament. Dabei wird eine alternative Version der Ereignisse gesponnen, ein „so war es wirklich“. Solche Ansätze mag ich sehr, allerdings ist Knausgårds Welt derart trostlos, dass mir das Weiterlesen stellenweise schwerfiel. Eine Art Thomas Bernhard in ganz anderem Gewand, viel blumiger, viel fantasievoller, weniger abstrakt und trocken – aber genauso düster, wenn nicht noch schlimmer.
Und experimentierfreudiger. Die Stellen über Bellori haben mir am besten gefallen, da schreibt Knausgård wie ein besserer Eco, weniger verschroben und weniger von dem Wunsch beseelt, mit dem eigenen Wissen vor dem Leser zu protzen. Dann kommen wundervoll sanfte, heimliche Übergänge; wo eben noch sachbuchartig über das Leben in einer alttestamentarischen Epoche doziert wurde, finden wir uns als Leser plötzlich in einer romanhaften Schilderung derselben, ohne richtig mitbekommen zu haben, wann der Stilwechsel eigentlich stattfand. Zugleich erlaubt sich Knausgård so große erzählerische Freiheiten, dass es zunächst fast platt wirkt, wenn etwa vorsintflutliche, biblische Protagonisten in einer unverkennbar skandinavischen Welt leben – bis er es selbst zur Sprache bringt und erklärt, dass die Welt vor der Sintflut eben anders aussah. Oder wenn zum Schluss plötzlich ein Ich-Erzähler auftritt, in einem Erzählstrang, der mit dem restlichen Buch nur sehr lose verbunden ist.
Genialer Stil, Hut ab auch vor der hervorragenden Übersetzung! Das hätte ein neuer Lieblingsautor werden können, wenn nicht alles so furchtbar depressiv geschildert wäre.
So werde ich sicher weitere Knausgårds lesen, einfach weil ich nichts anderes kenne, das diesem Erzählstil auch nur annähernd ähnlich ist. Ob ich sie genießen kann, steht auf einem anderen Blatt. ( )

An intensely weird yet memorable book. I didnt get all of it. As a person with an interest in the Bible, I was intrigued to read this as it dealt with the nephilim or fallen angels of Noah's day.
The whole narrative starts with a fictional 16th century Italian who sees two angels while out walking. Forget harps and haloes...
"Their faces are white and skull-like, their eye sockets deep, cheekbones high, lips bloodless. They have long fair hair, thin necks, slender wrists, claw-like fingers. And theyre shaking. One of them has hands that shake. Just then the other one tilts its head back, opens its mouth and lets out a scream. Wils and lamenting, it reverberates up the walls of the ravine. No human being is meant to hear that cry. An angel's depair is unbearable and almost crushed by terror and compassion."
Fast forward on to passages on the Bible and other writings...and then on to re-imaginings of OT sories featuring angels.
Don't expect historical accuracy; Knausgaard portrays these early characters as living in a place more reminiscent of a fairly modern Norwegian village, the men in trousers, black suits, the houses featuring window panes...and who makes up the small village where Cain and Abel are dwelling with their parents??
I was beguiled by the lovely thought of Adam after the Fall living close to Eden and seeing the distant glow in the sky of the seraphim guarding the Tree of Life.... Cain - a curmudgeonly misfit- is rather more sympathetic than the seriously odd golden boy Abel...
And then on to Noah...and here the story is mainly that of his sister. A pleasant enough middle aged woman living a few miles away with her family, they observe the endless rainy weather, and make their way to higher ground as rivers burst their banks and buildings get submerged. Again, Noah is a strange unknowable recluse. As the Ark takes float and some of the remaining human try to climb aboard, we have the image of one of Noah's sons bringing down a cudgel on their heads to prevent them....
And on to Ezekiel's angelic vision...more ponderings on religion...more of the story of our Italian angel hunter....And a strange final section that seemed unrelated to the rest. Here a modern day Norwegian man- he seems similar to the troubled hero of his later autobiographical "My Struggle"- gives into self-harming and contemplates the seagulls being evolved angels....

It's really hard to give a conclusion. It's like nothing I've ever readn, it's full of pretty implausible (but who knows?) takes on the Scriptures. Theres a lot of quite erudite musings on the nature of angelic beings. It's magical and horrible...and it's an absolute one-off. ( )

Uniek boek met bijzonder thema'de natuur van engelen' - ongewone opbouw van het boek - maar doordat Knausgard de enorme gave heeft om de lezer in zijn verhaal mee te nemen, is dit een pageturner ( )

2017
https://www.librarything.com/topic/260412#6090280 ( )